


Making Tea, Taking Comfort 1 -- Recognition

by Viola_Laterra



Series: Making Tea, Taking Comfort [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, Romantic Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-16 23:00:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20610773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Viola_Laterra/pseuds/Viola_Laterra
Summary: Katara's only saved two people from death by lightning.  Her healing brought back the Avatar, who saved the world.  But it also brought back a Fire Prince, who has his own part to play in saving... many things.





	Making Tea, Taking Comfort 1 -- Recognition

Katara had healed lots of people using her waterbending. But there were only two people who she'd brought back from close to death... and it felt different than it did to do more ordinary healing. And in both cases, it had been from Azula's lightning.

Aang had been... maybe actually dead. Something about her skill, added to the power of the water from the spirit spring in the North... had somehow allowed him to survive, or come back. She never could tell if he had actually been gone, and it was her desperate hope that he was alive that had made her think he wasn't gone yet... or if he had been barely hanging on, somehow. Well, it mattered little either way. He'd come back.

And it was that experience that had made it so hard to forgive Zuko for letting it happen. It had taken a lot of time, and a lot of Zuko working very hard to be there for them all, a lot of patience on his part... and eventually, she became convinced that the good she'd seen in him, in that moment of indecision down in the crystal caves of old Ba Sing Se, that that was the true core of him. So when he offered to her to go after Azula together, when it was all coming down to the last moments as Sozin's comet neared... she had agreed in a heartbeat. Not just because she wanted to stop Azula, for what she'd done to Aang. But also because she wanted to back Zuko up in facing his sister.

Katara had gotten to Zuko much earlier after he'd been hit by the lightning than she had with Aang. Only when she'd already gotten Azula contained, of course. But she could tell from looking at him, from how he felt when she touched him, that he was on his way out, fast. All that he was showing on the outside was the pain, but just like when she'd healed Aang, when she touched Zuko, when she brought the water's healing energies into his body, she could feel how he was... fried inside.

It was an enormous relief when he opened his eyes. And there was a moment where they realized at the same time that they had each just saved each others' lives.

Not that Aang hadn't saved her, lots of times. But Zuko had... he had thrown his body in the way. He'd thrown himself in the path of the lightning to save her. She and Sokka had *had* to save the Avatar, after all. They were devoted to him; he could save the world, and he was their friend. But to save a Fire Nation prince, who had hunted them for so long? Katara knew in that moment of mutual recognition that, yes, that was maybe just as important. 

And... returning the favor, his life for her life... she knew that now they had a bond that couldn't be broken. And it was a strange feeling, mixed in with the relief of being through what they needed to do.

It would take a long time for her to realize that it was a bond that she didn't want to break, and one that she would rely on in some of the difficult times to come.


End file.
